This class meeting was devoted to the discussion of a historical event, namely the 1755 so-called earthquake of Lisbon. It introduced the students to the importance of this historical event as well as to the basic historical and geological facts: the event occurred on al saints day 1755, it was a tsunami caused by the tectonic shifts, and in its wake Lisbon was d destroyed. This was on of the first global events for two reasons: for one, Lisbon was a center of trade with the colonies so that many European nations had trading relations and ships there. there was therefore an interest in events based on the trading relationships that were becoming global.  Second, a media infrastructure existed through which news traveled in a global scale. We discussed the local consequences the earthquake had: after the complete destruction of the city and the country the Marques de Pombal was able to modernize and rebuild the country. On a larger scale, the earthquake stirred a debate between enlightenment and religion stirred by the attempt of the counter reformation and its forces to instrumentalize it for its purposes. in Voltaire, we examined the best known reaction to this attempt in the medium of literature: Voltaire is critical of a religious interpretation that would justify the event and the incredible amount of human suffering. In his Candide, he also attacks Leibnitz philosophy of optimism in his Theodicy by using the means of the picaresque novel and establishing the conte philosophique as a new genre. Kleist's literature is a complex rewriting of earthquake accounts in different media, he comments on religious interpretations as well as on Enlightenment patterns such as Devine intervention, the state of nature and the state of culture etc. The question of the emergence of a neutral nature during the period allowed us to state in a more nuances way our position in relation to this historical period and its literary productions.